We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

Buchholz96: I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

It wouldn't shock me if they went that way in the next ten years or so, but I'd say that if they had tried it a few years ago, the league(s) would have gone belly-up. Americans as a whole are learning more about the formalities and structure of foreign leagues, so it would have probably just been seen as a confusing punishment for bad teams.

Buchholz96:We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

I thought the Sounders fanbase would be largely Hispanic, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

Billy Crystal Meth Lab:Buchholz96: I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

It wouldn't shock me if they went that way in the next ten years or so, but I'd say that if they had tried it a few years ago, the league(s) would have gone belly-up. Americans as a whole are learning more about the formalities and structure of foreign leagues, so it would have probably just been seen as a confusing punishment for bad teams.

p the boiler:Billy Crystal Meth Lab: Buchholz96: I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

It wouldn't shock me if they went that way in the next ten years or so, but I'd say that if they had tried it a few years ago, the league(s) would have gone belly-up. Americans as a whole are learning more about the formalities and structure of foreign leagues, so it would have probably just been seen as a confusing punishment for bad teams.

I'd like to see it happen, too, just to see Atlanta in the MLS.

It's not a punishment? I honestly thought it was

Probably could have made what I said clearer - I meant it more as the league punishing the team "unfairly" rather than the team being punished for staying out of the zone. It's punishment in any case, but I think with soccer culture only gaining more steam, it won't be as confusing.

Uh, pro/reg will disappear in Europe before it appears in the US. Even Mexico and Argentina have bent their pro/reg rules hard to prevent catastrophic economic collapse (like when River Plate went down). The only sport in the US that might be able to handle pro/reg would be the NFL, and even then you'd probably have to fold a team here or there b/c they couldn't afford the financial hit from relegation.

Billy Crystal Meth Lab:It wouldn't shock me if they went that way in the next ten years or so, but I'd say that if they had tried it a few years ago, the league(s) would have gone belly-up. Americans as a whole are learning more about the formalities and structure of foreign leagues, so it would have probably just been seen as a confusing punishment for bad teams.

I'd like to see it happen, too, just to see Atlanta in the MLS.

A, the Silverbacks are terrible.

B, I can see promotion/relegation happening at some point in the future. In fact, I think it's probable that the league will get there. But they're not ready yet. There aren't enough clubs that can work on a major-league scale yet. MLS must grow to the point where expansion is no longer a viable answer; that won't be until they make it up to the same 30-team size as the other North American leagues. Teams not in MLS need to build MLS-quality stadiums anyway, without promise of getting in. The city situation needs to stabilize a bit better; the lower leagues need to get themselves sorted out to where there's a single clear second-tier league. Owners need to get comfortable with the possibility that their team could lose value due to relegation. Then we can talk.

At that, you have two options: link with the second-tier league straight-up, or take MLS and split it in half at the end of a pre-designated season: top half of the table is first tier, bottom half is second tier, and then other leagues would go on to link to the second tier.

When would this happen? Not putting a timetable on it. It'll be ready to happen when it's ready to happen.

Trocadero:Even Mexico and Argentina have bent their pro/reg rules hard to prevent catastrophic economic collapse (like when River Plate went down).

No. They bent their promotion/relegation rules to weight things in favor of the big clubs. When River Plate went down, Argentina tried to expand the top flight to morbidly obese proportions in order to save them, only to become a global laughingstock for it. Europe's way of avoiding economic collapse is just coming into play, Financial Fair Play: if you put your club too far in debt, you're DQ'ed from continental competition.

MFAWG:Buchholz96: We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

I thought the Sounders fanbase would be largely Hispanic, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

It's an ongoing myth that MLS will only grow in Hispanic areas. It is consistently wrong. Most largely Hispanic areas have devoted fans, but, they are already devoted to other teams in other countries. Even the abortion known as Chivas USA fails to generate crowds with the largest Mexican community outside of Mexico. They already excluded the Cruz Azul, Club America et al fans by allowing Chivas to name it after their mothership. Did they think those other fans were going to come support anything named after the goats? Just farkin' stupid. They would have had a better chance if they just went Tri Colores in theme but that would have also excluded the Hondurans, El Salvadorans et al in a push for a latino based franchise. Better but not good. Their racism has backfired so fark them.

MFAWG:Buchholz96: We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

I thought the Sounders fanbase would be largely Hispanic, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

Look at Chivas. They're marketed specifically to the Mexican American population in Southern CA and can't get 5k through the door whyile the Galaxy routinely pul high attendance numbers in the same stadium. Provided, there are dumpster fires that are better managed than Chivas USA, but still.

We (Jacksonville) have a minor league baseball team, pro rugby team, pro basketball team, three pro football teams, and now a soccer team. We are the undisputed kings of secondary leagues and cheap seats. On a sad note, the Jaguars are probably our least entertaining football team.

MFAWG:Buchholz96: We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

I thought the Sounders fanbase would be largely Hispanic, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

The Tampa Bay Rowdies drew 50-60,000 in the late 70's from a mostly white area. I was actually named for the team captain.

bluorangefyre:The Jaguars are still far superior to the Bulldogs and Seminoles!

/lifelong hater of the college teams located in Athens and Tallahassee

/blocked from subscribing to MLS live for 5 or so years because I'm not a yank//casual TFC fan until that point

no kidding....all it did was build my hatred of them. To be fair ESPN also got me to be a Sounders fan. Like i was going to be a fan of the Fire. Now that i'm moving to Philly I may have to start rooting for the Union

Gosling:Billy Crystal Meth Lab: It wouldn't shock me if they went that way in the next ten years or so, but I'd say that if they had tried it a few years ago, the league(s) would have gone belly-up. Americans as a whole are learning more about the formalities and structure of foreign leagues, so it would have probably just been seen as a confusing punishment for bad teams.

Was a Chivas USA fan...even had the season tix for a few years (Guzan, Kljestan, Bornstein era). They did just about everything in their power to shift me to Galaxy, including sending me Galaxy tix (versus DC and KC) instead of the Rojiblanco (curiously, against the Galaxy and Sounders) as part of my season pack. Wouldn't let me swap back because "my seats were sold and there were none available."

/ No, it had nothing to do with conduct detrimental to the fan experience.// May have had something to do with having five ticket reps in three years.

Gosling:Trocadero: Even Mexico and Argentina have bent their pro/reg rules hard to prevent catastrophic economic collapse (like when River Plate went down).

No. They bent their promotion/relegation rules to weight things in favor of the big clubs. When River Plate went down, Argentina tried to expand the top flight to morbidly obese proportions in order to save them, only to become a global laughingstock for it. Europe's way of avoiding economic collapse is just coming into play, Financial Fair Play: if you put your club too far in debt, you're DQ'ed from continental competition.

I am still have doubts that the FFP rules will ever be properly enforced. A couple of La Liga teams have already been banned from the CL/EL already but the real test will be if some one like Barca, Real, PSG, ManCity, ManU, Milan or Inter falls foul of the regs and gets banned. Will they be banned or will it be swept under the carpet for the TV ratings.

But yeh promotion and relagation is so ingrained in Europe at least that it can't be removed by indavidual leagues. It would only be if the top 14 teams in Europe created a European Super League that it might go but the lesser teams would cry foul if that happend. Just look at the reaction when Man City and Leeds both went down.

MLS doesn't need promotion/relegation. And I don't think it will ever happen. Americans have too many sports to watch to the come out and support a team that just got relegated. MLS isn't ingrained into neighborhoods like British soccer is.

MLS is mostly fine how it is. Quit trying to european-ize it. All they need to do is change the rules for returning Yanksand strip Chivas of a team and give it to Orlando

Swoop1809:MLS doesn't need promotion/relegation. And I don't think it will ever happen. Americans have too many sports to watch to the come out and support a team that just got relegated. MLS isn't ingrained into neighborhoods like British soccer is.

MLS is mostly fine how it is. Quit trying to european-ize it. All they need to do is change the rules for returning Yanksand strip Chivas of a team and give it to Orlando

Orlando City needs an MLS team (and I live in Brooklyn). They have attendance levels and the party atmosphere many MLS teams would envy. There is a rumor is that if they get a downtown deal for a stadium by this fall, they could be MLS #21 or #22 by 2016.

/ok, I grew up in FL, and my bros live in O-town.//In theory, I'd like promo-relegation in the MLS, but until the lower divisions get more established, and the MLS becomes part of the national consciousness, it's not going to happen.///2030ish?

NASL and USL Pro need to grow, maybe even splinter off into smaller, more regional leagues, staying at the same D2 and D3 level to minimize travel costs. Some people are trying with this (let's see how it works). The NASL also needs to stop thinking it will overtake MLS, US Soccer is never going to let it happen, and neither will the TV networks. I do like the idea of integrating the USL Pro into the MLS's Reserve League, but that might create a fourth pro division, and bump the PDL and NPSL down to five, but so be it.

That said, promotion and relegation in the US is, at the earliest, 50 years away, if ever. American fans just simply won't have it. If it did happen, it will probably work as well as this piece of work.

I went to a DCFC game this year when I was visiting family. Wow, so much fun. It rivaled the Timbers for craziness in the supporters section. The Northern Guard are all a great group of guys (and girls) who are really passionate about soccer. The NPSL has a good thing going in Detroit, so I have no doubt they'll F it up.

Swoop1809:MLS is mostly fine how it is. Quit trying to european-ize it. All they need to do is change the rules for returning Yanksand strip Chivas of a team and give it to Orlando

MLS has already been quite Europeanized as it is. The process has actually been to de-Americanize it. We had to dump the 35-yard shootout, we had to make the clock count up like everyone else, we needed to get the teams out of football stadiums, we had to learn chants, we had to learn tifos, we just generally had to learn to cheer on our own and not have the scoreboard tell us when to do it, we had to learn that not giving a club a nickname (e.g. Toronto FC) is okay, there's a lot of things we had to do while still making a stable league. You don't realize how Europeanized it is compared to how it started out.

NASL is doing it right. They are spreading their market pretty evenly across the country where people support it. Granted most teams only average 5000 or so in attendance, but they still keep that number steady. MLS is making a huge mistake keeping 2 teams in NY and LA. Spread it around.

omnimancer28:We (Jacksonville) have a minor league baseball team, pro rugby team, pro basketball team, three pro football teams, and now a soccer team. We are the undisputed kings of secondary leagues and cheap seats. On a sad note, the Jaguars are probably our least entertaining football team.

This. My husband and I had to give up our Sharks season tickets this year (new baby). I was supremely sad about it. We had great seats, and had held them since the inception of the team.

Wow. I didn't think there would be this many comments to this thread. I'm surprised there's 40 people that know what the NASL is or know anything about Jax area sports franchises for that matter. Let me clarify one thing about my Latino supported US soccer markets:

Latino Market + Small Market = Gold

The reason Chivas USA has been a "failure" is that LA/Southern CA is a huge market with many options. Also lets be honest, Latino there is 98% Mexican. They are devoted to their Mexican league clubs and they can root for the Galaxy who is consistently better than Chivas USA plus the coverage of the Mexican league in LA is probably just as good or better than it is in Mexico.

I also encourage anyone who doubt latino support of MLS to check out the Screaming Eagles at DC United. I lived there for several years and they are absolutely nuts about DC United- win or lose. It's really the only thing that can put Mexicans, El Salvadoreans, Colombians, and Hondurans in one place rooting for one team and not killing each other.

But a markets like San Antonio and Austin (which is quickly turning into one metroplex a la Dallas/Ft.Worth) with not many professional options and a large hispanic, albeit Mexican, population are supporting the Scorpions pretty strongly. I'm also a Spurs season ticket holder and the Mexicans absolutely love the Spurs. I go to these games and they are easily 80% filled with Mexican/Mexican Americans.

I was actually on the committee with Fmr Mayor Ed Garza here in San Antonio a few years back to get an MLS franchise and we lost out to Houston who went on to have some very early success and has a solid fan base for MLS.

Also Go San Antonio Scorpions!!! Season ticket holder here. They play out of an awesome soccer specific stadium (Toyota Field), have a local TV deal, and all profits go to fund a special needs park. The NASL isnt on par with MLS by a long shot, but the play on the field is entertaining, the beer is reasonable, and they bring in clubs from Mexico for friendlies during the midseason break

I'm just excited to be moving 20min away from the Union's stadium in Phily. Will really be happy when DC United gets their new soccer only stadium. Plus I'll actually have the chance to take my kid to a USMNT team game and have it be under a 2hr drive.

Buchholz96:We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

Jacksonville has a large and growing Hispanic population as well as large segments of people from the Baltic region. Orange Park and Clay county boast huge a Hatian population.

We hosted a couple of MLS exhibitions which sold about 35K-40kat Everbank. Pretty decent for soccer. Plus I'm no huge soccer fan, but I wouldn't mind seeing some preseason FFC action

EKU Colonel:Buchholz96: We had the Jacksonville Cyclones for a bit until they went belly up. I'm not sure about the new NASL. I live in Austin now and we have the Aztecs as well as the San Antonio Scorpions who just got a sweet new soccer-specific stadium built down here. Small markets like San Antonio with a large Hispanic population will support a NASL team. Jax will not. Who knows. Now that Kahn bought Fulham, maybe soccer will catch on but College football rules that part of the state. I just wish MLS would incorporate Promotion/Relegation like the rest of the world.

Jacksonville has a large and growing Hispanic population as well as large segments of people from the Baltic region. Orange Park and Clay county boast huge a Hatian population.

We hosted a couple of MLS exhibitions which sold about 35K-40kat Everbank. Pretty decent for soccer. Plus I'm no huge soccer fan, but I wouldn't mind seeing some preseason FFC action

You would think that with that being the case, support would be without question in the Jax area. In fact, I'm amazed that FL, in general, has gone this long without an MLS franchise. We had the Mutiny and the Fusion in the MLS but those franchises never panned out. I would've thought for sure that the Rowdy supporters would've kept the Mutiny around alone and Miami, again Large Market and huge Hispanic population, couldn't sustain a franchise.

I still think that the culture, which Jax has yet to show the actually have one other than living up to stereo-typical white trash and meth sheds, has a long way to go.

I used to play my club ball as a kid out at Eagle Harbor in Jax when it was brand new.

Eddie Johnson could be an ambassador for the new NASL team being from Flagler.

Buchholz96:The reason Chivas USA has been a "failure" is that LA/Southern CA is a huge market with many options. Also lets be honest, Latino there is 98% Mexican. They are devoted to their Mexican league clubs and they can root for the Galaxy who is consistently better than Chivas USA plus the coverage of the Mexican league in LA is probably just as good or better than it is in Mexico.

You're not from here, are you?See my post above for the reason the Goats fail. It has nothing to do with the huge Hispanic hockey culture drawing fans away from Chivas. Or did you mean the NFL fans spending all of their time and money on the local franchise?The attempt by MLS to garner support (desperately sometimes) of the Hispanic market has consistently ended in failure. As it should I might add. MLS is much more successful when it just promotes the game instead of appealing to a niche of racial stereotypes.The two best recent expansions have been in the Pacific Northwest. Not really a hot bed of latino support there. Seattle, as you might notice has more sports to draw fans than LA does, in a geographically smaller market and sells more tickets than anybody else.Also, as a lifetime fan of the USMNT, from the bottom of my heart let me express my feelings about becoming more like Mexico by throwing batteries and bags of piss on that idea. Fark Mexico....right in the Azteca.